British Azaria speaks out: “I made a terrible mistake”

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Sergeant Alexander Blackman, who was released recently after serving time in jail for manslaughter after shooting a neutralized Taliban terrorist, related: “I know that I made a terrible mistake. I don’t know why I did it. I think about it a lot and have done so ever since.”

Last month, after completing 3 years and 4 months in jail, Sergeant Alexander Blackman returned to his family. Blackman, a soldier in the British Army who was documented shooting a wounded Taliban terrorist, was arrested, tried and convicted of murder but the charge was later on reduced to manslaughter. Now, he is speaking out for the first time.

The incident took place in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan on September 15, 2011. Blackman was documented shooting a neutralized terrorist. He became the first British soldier to be imprisoned for killing on the battle field since World War II.

“I know that I made a terrible mistake,” he related in the Daily Mail. “I don’t know why I did it. I think about it a lot and have done so ever since but I cannot put an exact thought as to why I did what I did at that moment of time. I wish I could.”

However, his wife Clare Blackman argued that the process of judging soldiers on the battlefield is fundamentally unfair: “There are so many facets you can’t possibly take into account from the comfort of your sofa watching five minutes’ worth of video clips from an incident that lasted an hour. It is not right or fair to judge what happened in those few minutes without understanding absolutely what it means to be out on the ground.”